drowning in this sickness
by likeglory
Summary: "Derek," Lydia says, not taking her eyes off the writhing mess of limbs and deranged laughter on the floor, "that's not Stiles." "Wrong," Stiles sings out, before Derek can reply, with a grin on his face.


**A/N:** this was originally posted on ao3. thank you anakinsw for being my beta reader. this fic was not rewritten, just looked over, so there could be mistakes on my part left over.

* * *

><p>Scott is knocking on the Stilinski's front door with little to no patience left in his system after two days of not seeing Stiles at school – because his best friend has been sick – and Stiles doesn't get sick, and John hasn't really picked up the phone when he's called to check in – so it has to be bad, right? It has to be pretty bad – for Stiles to be home sick.<p>

Melissa is standing behind him, arms crossed, with a small smile on her face. She's told him not to worry about it – that John is capable of taking care of his own son.

(But, for now, that's a lie, because John doesn't like to be home – not so soon after Claudia has passed away.)

Scott hears a crash – his spine stiffens, and Melissa assures him that everything's okay, Stiles probably just tripped over something – and so Scott just opens the door, because he is done waiting for nobody to open the door. Melissa says she'll wait, on the front step, because she knows that her hovering won't do much – okay, so any – good if Stiles stayed home for the sake of mourning.

Scott makes his way through the hall, the kitchen, and towards the stairs, but he doesn't have to look very hard, because what he hears – it's – well, it's rather unsettling.

He doesn't call his mother, when he should have, he simply reaches the top step and peers into the hall, and he has to stop and stare at what he sees.

Stiles is one the floor, a cord wrapped around his ankle – the lamp from the hall table on the floor with pieces of the bulb sticking out from the shade – which will be taken out in a few years, because of Stiles clumsiness, and the fact that Stiles has a small cut on his temple from where his head hit the small table with the sharp corners – but that's not what stops him from taking another step forward and calling for his mother.

There are tear-tracks on Stiles' cheeks, but his eyes aren't red, although his body is shaking, and it takes Scott a moment to realize that he's laughing.

It takes a moment for the laughter to reach his ears, but when it does, he takes a step back, and nearly falls backwards, because he's forgotten he's at the top of the stairs. The laughter – it's loud, it's not right – it isn't Stiles – and he doesn't know what to do.

The lanky, awkward boy on the floor is clutching at his stomach, his eyes squeezed shut, as his laughter rings through the house, and Scott is left without even a single clue as to what he should do.

"Stiles?"

The laughter gets louder. It's one of the creepiest, fucked up things Scott – and his mom – will ever hear, and, even though they've got a lot of shit coming their way in the future, it will actually stay one of the most fucked up, creepiest things Scott will hear.

"Stiles."

The laughter stops, and he turns his head, like he's just noticing someone came into his house – and he doesn't look sick. Well, not really sick – his skin is clammy, and pale, from what he can see, and his eyes are bloodshot and wide.

He's been crying, Scott realizes, and even though he has words of comfort bubbling up in his chest – warm, with good intention – because Claudia always said intentions counted when you were trying to make somebody feel better, even if you couldn't really fix them – they don't burst from his mouth, because something cracks in his chest.

So he stares instead.

"Hey, Scott," Stiles wheezes, and then another fit of laughter starts. The laughter is strained – strangled – however you want to put it, it's not familiar – it's not right.

this isn't Stiles.

Scott calls for his mother, because he doesn't really know what else to do, but she's already heading towards the stairs, with worry etched in her features, in every bone in her body.

* * *

><p>They don't bring it up again, once they've got Stiles back in bed after he nearly retches in the hall, and stay till about six, at least a half hour before the sheriff comes home – and they don't tell John. No, they can't.<p>

And what worries Melissa is the fact that Stiles doesn't even seem to remember it.

He doesn't seem to remember any of that afternoon at all.

Scott and Melissa eventually forget about the incident, but they miss all the next times that it happens – that something like it happens – that Stiles acts like something that isn't quite Stiles – and if they saw it, if they knew why he stayed home sick, under his covers, muttering to himself until he put his hands over his ears and squeezed his eyes shut – till he was no longer really there – they would have done something about it a long while ago.

But they don't see it. Not how Derek sees it, anyway, and that's worse.

Time passes, and eventually, Scott gets turned into a werewolf – and, really, people should stop doubting Stiles, because he probably saw that coming a mile away – and eventually, they meet Derek – and more shenanigans follow in the process of dealing with kanimas and Erica, Isaac, and Boyd and other things – and the Argents, can't forget about that lovely lot – no, sir-ee.

Derek, over time, gets accustomed – kind of – to Stiles mannerisms; the kid flails too much, sarcasm is literally the only defense he has, he runs his mouth all the time – but he does come up with good plans, he figures stuff out – a lot – and that's it, though. All he does is get accustomed to it.

He knows Stiles wonders why he sends him glares, dark looks – full of contempt and distrust – and that has earned him the title sourwolf – one that only Stiles uses, even though Erica could pull one off with a shit-eating grin if she really was aiming to get her throat ripped out and have her bleed out in Boyd's arms.

And it irritates him, that Stiles doesn't seem to know – because it all starts one sunny November afternoon, after school, sometime after the alphas clear out of town – and they're alone.

Stiles drops by to deliver information from Scott to Derek – but he actually ends up throwing a book full of loose notebook paper – with smudged ink and little cartoons drawn all over them – and Stiles is about to get back into his jeep after declaring that "I am not some werewolf messenger just because I have a goddamn jeep, can't you wolf out and just, I don't know, do it yourself?" when he pauses, his body going rigid –

And then Derek notices it.

It's in the way Stiles twitches a bit, like he's just waking up, and he drops his hand, where he was going to open the door and speed off so fast he probably would have a chance to get away from Derek if the sourwolf wasn't such a creeper werewolf all the goddamn time (according to Stiles).

It's in the way his shoulders relax, how the rigidness of his spine fades into – into something worse, something Derek watches with a frown and calculating eyes as Stiles turns, slowly, and looks at him, from across the hood of the jeep.

The slow smile that spreads over his lips would be unsettling to a human – but to Derek, it's just wrong, because he knows Stiles – helpless, skinny, sarcastic, defenseless, aggravating Stiles – and this? This isn't him. Because the human in front of him tilts his head, lets his smile turn into a smirk, and then he's getting into the jeep – with calm, sure movements – and it doesn't smell like Stiles.

Even though that's kind of crazy, Derek tries to dismiss it – the demeanor, the scent, everything – as Stiles drives away, but it happens again, when he finds him out in the woods. Being a fucking idiot, of course – because, some months later, there are hunters looking for people – humans, like Stiles – who will tell them all about the local human-werewolf pack in Beacon Hills.

But the Stiles he finds isn't the Stiles that's been flailing whenever he pops up unexpectedly or singing out "sourwolf" in public when they see him or making dog jokes – which will get him a kick in the shin from Erica, which gets a snicker out of Boyd and Isaac.

He doesn't speak, when he first sees the kid stumbling through the trees – with, what a bottle of whiskey? He can smell it from so far off, he wants to wrinkle his nose because what drove Stiles to drink –

A piercing, strained laugh reaches his ears, and Derek's entire body stills. His eyes narrow, as he takes in the lanky human from a distance – body swaying, but there's not enough alcohol in his system to have him drunk off his ass – good, thing, too because Derek would like him to be sober enough when he dumps him on Scott McCall's front porch so he can get an proper ass kicking.

He knows what Scott would say to this – and since Stiles isn't his problem, he –

"Oh, Stiles," the Stilinski kid's voice rings out through the trees, and he watches him stumble and catch himself narrowly on a tree trunk. "This – it's my turn, you've had your chance."

The kid sounds crazy. And he's definitely not on his Adderall - which can't be good and -

He thinks he might see a flicker – a ripple – flutter across Stiles' features, but he has no idea what's going on – what he saw – but he smells that it's not Stiles, and it just proves it more when he slowly straightens up, turns his head (like he knew the entire time but that's pretty much impossible), meets Derek's eyes, and winks.

The fucker winks. And walks away, without one look back – hips swaying, and he hears murmuring, but he doesn't hear it – doesn't want to hear it – so he lets it get lost in the wind sifting through the woods.

* * *

><p>The next day, he can smell anxiety and fear on the kid, but he pretends like nothing happened, like nothing happened at all, like he was never in the woods with a bottle of whiskey older than he was, acting like - well - not Stiles.<p>

So Derek does, too. He (kind of) pretends that it didn't happen, but it did, and he's going to keep glaring at the sheriff's kid for it, because something happened. He won't tell. Even though he knows he should probably tell Scott. Probably. Because it's Scott's best friend.

He doesn't, though.

* * *

><p>Lydia has known Stiles her entire life – and, recently, she's been paying attention to him more – mainly because he comes up with great plans for not getting the pack killed – even though he hates Jackson – and Erica likes to scare him, make him back into a tree or fall backwards onto his rear in the woods, and that's usually followed by a string of curses or dog jokes that has clawed hands around his throat for a good minute before Scott finally pulls Erica off the snarky kid.<p>

He still likes her – she can tell – but not in the way that he used to. Sometimes, she wonders what it would have been like – to get to know him, when he was head over heels for her – but not often. Now, he just gives her despairing looks and flailing arms – looks she's used to, by now, after all the shit that's happened – since she found out about, well, everything.

But there are some days where he doesn't. It's on the days the pack isn't around – just the two of them, and sometimes Derek, although she doesn't really care to know why the werewolf would stick around for Stiles – though, he's been glaring at him a lot more than usual lately.

On some days – cloudy days, days where Scott once said he looks like he's thinking about his mom – she remembers the funeral, she remembers how much the Stilinski family had hurt – Stiles doesn't even look at her. He'll slide his eyes to wherever Derek is, and with a murmur to himself and a twitch of his lips, he's back to doing whatever he was doing before.

But she doesn't actually notice anything bad – because Stiles is Stiles and he will always be an aggravating bundle of nervous limbs and snark and sarcasm (Boyd has punched him more than once for running his mouth) and Stilinski-ness (according to Isaac) – until, well, January.

They've dealt with witches – just got done dealing, in fact, and Lydia hates witches, officially – because they did something to her – that makes her bones tingle, that makes her too hyperaware when silence stretches on for miles and miles and she has nothing left to do but scream because everything is empty and it always, always feels like someone is going to die.

It's horrible, but she shoves it down – down and deep, because if the others knew, they'd worry. The twins – they'd worry. Well, Aiden more than Ethan – because Ethan's primary concern is Danny – pretty much all the time.

Not that she cares. She has other things to worry about, anyway.

It's been a week, since they killed most of them, and ran the last out of Beacon Hills – always a good thing, and no one really died – well, someone got raised from the dead, but that's another story entirely – one with decaying dead people and a flailing Stiles and an eye-rolling Derek – and nothing has happened out of the ordinary. It's after school, and Lydia, Stiles, and Aiden are sitting on the wooden tables outside the school. Scott is somewhere off with Kira – Allison, with Isaac – and nobody wants to know where Derek is, because he's probably lurking – and that's really all they need to know.

Aiden is prodding at Lydia's thick-in-ancient-annoying-Latin with the toe of his shoe and Stiles is, well, chewing on the end of his pen, staring off into the distance – which he doesn't do often, because he can usually come up with a snarky thing to say in about five seconds when Aiden is around – because he and the twins don't get along, because, you know, they were scary as fuck alphas that tried to rip his throat out on more than one occasion – and he still hasn't forgiven either of them for that.

Lydia doesn't care if Stiles' feelings are hurt or not – but she does notice the fact that he's quiet. Not pensive, not thoughtful – but eerily quiet. It's unlike him, because his gaze is dark, and she can see the corner of his mouth twitching up – up – and before she knows it, she's asking what's wrong with him, because, frankly, he's getting on her nerves – with this occasional I am totally acting weird front – and she knows that at least Scott has the sense to see it. She knows it.

She's seen him glance over at his best friend, too – but that's it.

That's all the pack is doing, for acknowledging something that's probably so horribly wrong with Stiles – at least, that's what she thinks, because expecting the worse in Beacon Hills is no longer just a thing Stiles does.

When she repeats her question, and even Aiden is giving him a critical look, Stiles slowly turns his head. His face – it's pale, unnaturally so – and she swears that the circles under his eyes weren't there before.

As in, they weren't there six minutes before now –

"Nothing," Stiles says after a moment, before standing up, slowly, twisting his shoulders so something in his spine cracks – Lydia doesn't wince, though she'd like to – "absolutely nothing."

He flashes a grin at her, wide and raw and all wrong – winks at Aiden – which makes the werewolf's jaw actually drop at least an inch – before he starts walking away, but Lydia is up on her feet, high heels be damned, and before she knows what she's doing, she's grabbing his arm and twisting him around.

"Stiles," she hisses, as he takes a slow step back from her – expression flat, still pale, the grin gone. "I don't know what is wrong with you, but—"

"Nothing's wrong with me," he says, and a snort escapes him – something flickers across his features, and Lydia's spine goes tight like a bowstring when she sees **it** disappear from his face. "Nothing at all."

He snorts again, and then he's chuckling. It sounds like he's partly choking, and she opens her mouth, to demand what the hell is going on with him because she is sick of knowing that something is wrong and yet not knowing what the problem is when actual laughter escapes him. It comes out, from the bottom of his lungs, has him doubling over, one hand over his mouth, the other on his side as he falls to his knees.

The laughter that spills forth from his mouth, that causes tears to form in his eyes – which looks so horridly, horribly wrong, because Stiles looks half dead right now – and she's considering telling Aiden to call Derek – actually, she's going to – but she finds herself only able to listen to the crazed sounds coming from Stiles.

They're lucky no one else is around. Because the laughter – strained, strangled, desperate, perhaps – she can't tell – sends unpleasant ripples through her stomach. She's getting that feeling again – the one she buried deep – no one's going to die – but something is going to happen.

Aiden has Derek on the phone after Lydia glares at him and tells him to be useful because Stiles hasn't stopped and when she crouches down to put a hand on his arm, to ask him what's wrong – because she's kind of concerned, even though he's annoying the hell out of her – and Aiden – and she wants to smack him silly with her eight-hundred-page, hardback tome of spells she doesn't really need to know – but before her fingers can touch him he's lunging towards her.

Stiles is fast, sure, but Lydia has never seen him faster – so she doesn't have time to react when his finger are wrapping around her throat, his eyes flat and cold – his fingers are cold – but she's only painfully deprived of air, for but a moment, because Aiden is throwing Stiles away from her – he lands about ten feet away from the pair. She hears something crack – and sits up, rubbing at her neck.

What the hell?

Aiden starts going towards him, but Lydia grabs his arm, as she uses him to get up. Because never – never – would she have thought Stiles Stilinski – capable of a thing like that – but here she is. And Stiles –

Stiles is curled on the ground, laughing again – louder.

Never mind that he probably just tried to strangle her with the intent to kill – he needs help.

"Derek and Scott are on their way," Aiden informs her, not taking his eyes off Stiles, who's muttering things when he can manage to breathe – and when he turns to look at them, to grin, with white teeth and lips that cut into his cheeks – they see tracks on his face.

Something lurches inside Lydia.

This isn't Stiles. It can't be – she knows it's not.

* * *

><p>"You're ridiculous, Lydia – I'm not—"<p>

Lydia holds up a hand, and Stiles falls silent. They're in the hospital – they've got him strapped to the bed, by his wrists, because Derek told them to, and Melissa and Scott keep sharing looks – and that doesn't bode well for anyone in the room.

"Stiles, what do you remember?"

"What?" he looks like he just woke up. Color is returning to his features – he's looking healthier now, but she's not convinced. Under the collar of her jacket, her neck is still red from where his nails had dug into her flesh – she hadn't noticed them until Aiden had – and beside her, the twins and Allison are giving the sheriff's one weary looks.

Allison is more sympathetic, though, because it's her ex's best friend, and even Isaac isn't saying anything. Neither is Erica, or Boyd, for that matter – and that's a pretty bad sign, all things considered.

Even Peter's lurking in the corner silently, not saying a word. But his eyes – they're careful, watchful, and as much as Lydia would love to stab him twenty-something times in the eye socket with the heel of her boots, they're one – designer – and two – they cost her a pretty penny – and she has Stiles to worry about right now.

So stabbing the man who used her to bring himself back from the dead can wait.

"From the time we got out of the school – no, when you came back from the nurse's office, during sixth – what do you remember?"

Because that's when he came back different, Lydia remembers.

"Um . . ." Stiles features twist, and she knows he's thinking – really thinking hard – but she knows she's not going to get a comforting answer when something akin to horror spreads over his features, and she hears his breath hitch. "I – oh god, I –"

"Stiles, it's okay," Scott tells him, he's a goddamn liar – all of them can tell – but it's only because this is his best friend. "You're going to be okay."

"No, dude, just – no," Stiles is beginning to shake his head, and all Lydia can do is listen to the sound of her heart sinking down to her toes from shriveling up in her chest as he places his hands over his ears and bends his spine.

They all hear Melissa telling everyone to get out – that if they don't, Stiles is going to have one massive panic attack – because, oh god, does he actually know?

They are all pushed out by the hospital staff, but the door isn't firmly shut before they hear Stiles shouting – and it makes the twins cringe – and even Derek looks away, while Scott closes his eyes, and tries not to listen –

"What the fuck is wrong with me? What is **wrong **with me? What have I **done**—"

Lydia's walking down the hall before she can blink.

She can't listen to this – to him.

She can't.

Somehow, they get Melissa to agree to release him from the hospital – without notifying John, because if John knew his son, well – had a panic attack, tried to kill Lydia, and has been acting up since his mom died, well – everything would go to hell.

Not that it's not bad already – because everything's pretty bad.

Scott has elected to ban Stiles from school, because they're not sure what's wrong with him – they won't get their test results back till the end of the week, and even then, there needs to be a psych evaluation to be had. But they absolutely refuse to lock him up in an institution. Melissa won't let that happen.

Not to John's son. Not to Claudia's son.

They keep him at the Hale house. Melissa and Scott make up some bullshit for John to believe – because, honestly, if he knew what they knew, he would lose it – he would be lost – and they can't have that – they can't have that at all – so they keep him in the dark, unless it's absolutely necessary to tell him that – that Stiles –

They don't actually know if he's possessed, insane, or what – they don't know, and that's the problem.

Derek doesn't really like him there – but they don't have anywhere else to put him. And it's bad enough that Peter's sticking around, to see how things work out.

But Stiles doesn't know why he would actually give a flying fuck even if said fuck had a unicorn horn and a cure for death – because, seriously, Peter Hale tried to kill him once – and he's so not over that. But Lydia has first dibs if she decides she wants to kill him – she totally could, because the creep did use her to bring him back from the dead – totally not okay, by the way – Stiles likes him better dead.

The pack drops in from time to time. Occasionally, all of them will show up – but usually, they come in trios or pairs – and that's fine, it really is, but he knows what they're waiting for – and he knows it's going to come, one of these days.

Lydia told him what happened – that he tried to kill her – and the problem is? The problem is, that he remembers nothing – he remembers he had cold hands, he knows that he feels like he could remember, if someone cracked open his skull and plucked the memories from his brain – but dude, lobotomies are so not cool – and he is so not up for one of those.

Besides, a witch already tried that on him – and Derek tore her to pieces. Yeah. Whole lot of fun – and a whole other story, too.

Lydia and Scott and Melissa and even Derek – they've told him about what he's done, about how he's acted, and every time they patiently retell it to him – when he winked at Derek, when he stumbled around with a bottle of fucking whiskey – when he's laughed so hard he's cried but he can't remember – it's all surreal, and it's so very, very alarming. Stiles hasn't felt like he couldn't breathe since his mother's death – but the familiar, crushing fear – the ever-present panic, that took ages to get over – because it had taken ages to get the weight off his chest, to finally be able to breathe right – it's back.

It's back, and he doesn't know what to do. Not when Melissa tells him that she thinks she knows what's wrong with him – not when he sees the fading red crescent-moon marks on Lydia's neck – not when Scott throws him a pitying look or even when Erica – for Christ sakes, Erica, of all people – gives him a tight smile before she leaves.

But Derek, though – Derek doesn't really give him any sympathy. He wonders if it's the wink that did it for him – if the guy is a "no homo-shmomo" kind of guy. Because, well, it's not that he likes the goddamn sourwolf of Beacon Hills – no, they can't really stand each other – because Stiles always gets shoved up against hard surfaces and he usually gets a death threat shoved in his face.

Derek is also probably sick of him – so very, very sick of him – but an upside to this is that he can annoy the hell out of Peter and no one can tell him to do jackshit about it because it's just what the bastard has coming.

Things go well – kind of – until they go badly. Until they remember why Stiles is being kept under-watch at the Hale house, it's why they check on him every day for four days – a few more, apparently, till they get the test results back from the hospital – maybe later – Melissa isn't sure.

It happens in the middle of the night, when Lydia, Derek, and Peter are in the living room with him. And they get notified with a laugh. A bone-chilling one that makes Derek's mouth turn down in a frown, but Stiles has fallen out of his chair and onto the dusty hardwood floor, holding his side.

"Oh," he says – and they know that it's happened, for real, and they're bolt upright, calling the rest of the pack – even though it's a school night, but fuck, it's Stiles – "it's good to be back."

"Stiles," Lydia says carefully, but he cuts her off with a snort.

He sits up, wiping at his cheeks – and the rest of the pack are on their feet, because they don't really know what he's capable of – if he's capable of anything at all – and they're not entirely sure if they want to find out – at all.

"It's you," he says after a moment, to Lydia, giving her a critical, serious once-over before he dissolves into another fit of laughter – laughter that continues to unsettle them all, maybe even Peter, who's lurking in the corner, watching the whole thing carefully. "I'm – he's pathetic, isn't he? Chasing you for – what, God knows how many years? And you – this is – fuck."

He can barely gasp out words in between is laughter, and Derek's had enough. He takes a step forward, and reaches down to grab him by the collar – but Stiles is fast, faster than they remember. He darts to the side, and he's on his feet before anyone can stop him. His shoulders are lax – his heartbeat, normal – but his scent – the emotions rolling off of him – he can sense anxiety, desperation – something else, something worse – and he knows Scott can sense it, too – because Scott looks like he just wants to wake up from some horrid dream and pretend none of this is happening.

"Aw, Derek, are you worried about me?" he waggles his eyebrows, and dodges another swipe of Derek's hands, "the sourwolf never gets worried, though, right?"

He can feel a thin layer of lust, coating the rest of it – the mess, the things that are making Lydia want to scream, the things that make Derek want to throw the kid through the fucking wall. It's ridiculous.

"Stiles," Peter starts, but then Stiles raises a finger – doesn't even turn to speak.

"You tried to kill me – him – a lot. Right? Why aren't you dead? Have I said any good zombie jokes recently? Because – "

"Dude." Scott's voice is strained – he's worried, but he's done with this – done with not knowing.

They all are.

"Yeah?" Stiles turns – and something flashes, in his features – but it's gone as soon as they see it. Like it wasn't really there.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"Me? Nothing. I'm spick-n-span, dude. All the way."

And then he collapses, laughing again, holding his side.

Scott wants to be sick. He remembers this – remembers that it's just as bad as the time when he first saw it happen – when they were small – soon after Claudia's death.

"Derek," Lydia says, not taking her eyes off the writhing mess of limbs and deranged laughter on the floor, "that's not Stiles."

Derek still looks like he wants to throw Stilinski through a wall again.

"Wrong," Stiles sings out, before Derek can reply, with a grin on his face, but before he's done lunging – and before he can wrap his fingers around Lydia's throat – who knows she should have seen that coming – Scott and Peter are dragging him away from her.

"I'm just not your Stiles."

Lydia turns away.

He's right. It's not.

"There's two of me," he says, the next day, when Lydia and Derek are in the room together, alone, with him. His voice has a mocking undertone to it. It's not like Stiles, and it's so very, very wrong, but they listen to him, their eyes never leaving him.

Even if he has tried to kill Lydia in the past two days.

"What?" she asks.

"You heard me," he says, grinning at her, "there's two. There's me, and then there's the Stiles you knew. Great guy, but I need to stretch my legs."

Derek's eyes narrow.

"Oh, chillax, wolfy, he's not gone. Although, he likes you, just as much as I do, and wow, oh wow, there are so many things I can say right now, that would fuck you up - in fact, speaking of fucking, Derek - "

"Why did you try to kill me?"

The words are crisp and cold when they leave Lydia's mouth, but they send him into another fit of manic laughter anyway. It lasts only about thirty seconds though, because he's leaning towards her, in his chair. His lips are curling upwards, his eyes are growing dark, and the circles under his eyes and sickly palor are back

Lydia mentally notes that this is a sign – a heads-up – that will tell her if it's the Stiles everyone knows – or if it's – it's this one.

No one is really talking about it. No one wants to until Melissa gets back to them with the tests.

"I – you know he loved you, right? Loved you so much when you were little," Stiles says, rolling his eyes, "it's all pathetic, I'll have you know – and he still cares. Kind of. Only a little bit, though, which is great – because," he drawls his words as his eyes shift to Derek, and he tilts his head.

Doesn't finish his sentence.

"So it's because –"

"It doesn't even matter," he chortles, "I didn't kill you, so aren't you going to leave it at that?"

Lydia swallows, but doesn't speak.

"No? Well, have you ever killed someone? No? Well, I haven't – he hasn't – but me? Me?"

The way his lips twist into a sneer makes Lydia's stomach churn. Derek mutters something about calling Scott, because, really, this kid is not his problem – he can feel the lust on him – and it's getting on his nerves (he's done nothing but ask Derek to fuck him in the most indirect ways for the better part of the night, because he's such a goddamn nuisance and at this point Derek would love to have the other Stiles back – the one who thought baseball bats were the answer to extreme violence – the one who wasn't like this.

Derek steps out of the house – and it's just them.

Stiles' smirk slides off his feature, and he says, almost sincerely, "You make me angry, Lydia Martin – and if there's something I can't do about that – say, I can't kill you – **well**."

Lydia lifts her chin in response to his unspoken threat – she knows it's a threat.

And he smirks at this.

"I'm going to stain his hands," he says to her, a smile cutting into his cheeks like knives, "I'm going to get them drenched in gasoline and blood – and there's nothing you can't do. If I can't kill you? I'll do something else."

None of this makes any sense, but this is bad. This is really bad.

"Please," she says, stepping towards him, and he snorts. "Give us back Stiles."

His shit-eating grin is something she wants to wipe off his face.

"Maybe," he tells her, and she actually does end up storming off this time – his laughter following her.

She hates this. It doesn't make any sense.

* * *

><p>Melissa calls Derek, when Derek is with Scott, and it's just Aiden and Lydia with Stiles. Apparently, the evil Stiles isn't around, and their kid Stilinski is back. Kind of. He's a mess, though, a mess of panic attacks and erratic heartbeats.<p>

It goes from bad to worse in all of the three seconds when Melissa tells Derek that she has no idea what's wrong with him.

The tests were inconclusive.

Fuck.

The pack thinks that he might actually have two people stuck in his head.

Peter says that he's crazy.

Allison tries to stab with him an arrow, while Erica and Boyd remain silent. Isaac is by Scott's side, in the upstairs of the Hale house, and they're all uncomfortable.

None of them know what to do.

But they can't tell John.

How could they do that to the sheriff? How do you tell a man that his son - the son of his dead wife, whom he loved too much, whom he cared for more than anything in the world, before Stiles - that his son was probably crazy? That there were two people in his head?

That no one knew how to fix it?

Somehow, it's just Lydia who ends up with Stiles.

They only got a day, one fucking day, with their Stiles. She has been advised against spending time alone with him, because then he starts talking, about the most unsettling of things, like blood and fire and knives, about what he's going to do, because this Stiles? He's certified insane. The real Stiles declared it.

"You know, I think you like me."

Lydia's head jerks up, so fast that something at the top of her spine cracks, from the tome of Latin she was reading.

"Well, not me. Him. Or me. You have liked a werewolf. And Jackson."

Stiles makes a face.

It makes her stomach churn all over again.

"You can stop talking now," she says, and tries to go back to reading, but once this Stiles starts talking, she has to listen. Because it is wrong and this should not be happening. At all.

"Or not."

Silence meets him. She's only pretending to read, and he knows it.

It doesn't stop him from smiling that knife-like smile of his, the one that makes her feel like he's ripping into her insides with his bare hands. Because this? This isn't what she bargained for. Expected. Wanted. In her life. Being a banshee, getting involved with werewolves, hunters, kanimas, witches, even faeries, for Christ sake. Nothing's as bad as this.

She knows it.

"You know, I don't think I'm going to kill you."

There's a beat of silence, before "what."

"Nope. I don't think I will."

Didn't he want to? Didn't he give her a not-reason for wanting to kill her?

Didn't he?

She doesn't understand, and Lydia Martin understands everything. And this? This is baffling. Concerning. It makes her want to be sick, because this is all kinds of fucked up. All kinds.

Especially since they've all decided that he's probably crazy. But not. It's a disorder, she thinks, she started researching last night, but there's nothing for this, nothing that could explain this, what's happening to their Stiles.

"You can't even try," she mutters after a moment, refusing to look up at him.

"Wanna bet?"

Stiles is up on his feet in a moment. Lydia doesn't know how, she's not even sure how it happens, but he's knocking her over, flat on her back, pressing his fingers into her throat, something sharp against her ribs, and she doesn't even have time to figure out how he got free or where he got the knife from -

"See? I could," he says, leaning close to her, daring her with flat eyes and a vicious curl of his lips to scream as loud as she can. "But I won't."

He starts laughing, but before his eyes start to water, she feel something sharp in her side, and suddenly, he's gone from her sight. Gone, just like that. She looks down.

The knife's in her stomach. She won't bleed to death, not quickly at least, so when she manages to get a hold of her phone, her mind is muddle and her hands are shaking so badly she can hardly keep the device in her hands.

Blood is everywhere. Under her. Puddling around her. Soaking into her dress, staining her skin. Everything's become numb.

* * *

><p>Lydia only needs a transfusion and stitches. He twisted the knife around, apparently, but she doesn't remember that.<p>

Lydia vaguely recalls lips ghosting her temple, something muttered in her ear, and the warmth of flowing blood after a sharp pain that had lasted for both ages and seconds.

But she doesn't tell them that, though, when the pack asks her.

* * *

><p>Lydia sees him again. He's covered in blood, there's a smile on his face, bright, gleeful, but his eyes are dead, and it's the middle of the night.<p>

Some months later.

That's how long they've gone without seeing their Stiles.

Is their Stiles even there anymore?

They don't know.

Lydia tries to run, like the smart girl she is, and when an arm wraps around her middle - she can smell the blood on him, and she wants to vomit - but before she can get so far, far enough to a distance that's considered safe - she feels his lips at her ear, but all she hears is laughter as she feels cold metal plunge into her chest, and she's left gasping on the street, calling after him.

It's been months, and she's had time to think.

(She still wants to save him.)

Stiles aimed for a lung, on purpose.

Not the heart.

No, he wasn't aiming to kill her.

Lydia remembers that.

But when she's sent home, from the hospital, with a brooding Derek and exhausted Scott, with Allison holding her hand, it's all she can hear.

Stiles laughter, in her ear.

It's what she remembers: laughter, blood, and metal.

There's probably no chance in saving him.

Allison stays the night, even though they both can't sleep. Allison's on the phone, communicating with Boyd and Erica and Isaac and even Peter about the whole fiasco, which none of them would have known about if Melissa hadn't called.

* * *

><p>Lydia can't sleep for days. His laughter; it's always ringing her ears.<p>

It makes her feel like she's going to lose her mind.


End file.
